Sick of lugging Sibley around with you? Here’s a literary writer who’s also an avid birder, explaining why instead of using a guidebook I used my i-phone, having just downloaded the amazing “i-Bird Explorer Plus” application. Eight hundred and ninety-one birds in my pocket, along with their calls, their range, and a “birdipedia” link to…Continue Reading…
I love to hash over climate policy and politics as much as the next peon blogger. And I love biting the ankles of melodramatic bloviators. But I also love reporting, which often means reading documents and talking with people on the phone. So this week I’ve tried to tamp down my enthusiasm for bloggy smackdowns…Continue Reading…
Can any of you Joe “catastrophe” Romm loyalists explain the purpose of the Tom Friedman seal of approval at the top of Climate Progress? I mean, all of you regular Rommians already know how “indispensable” the blog is, right? Or is the Friedman liplock meant for new tourists? Is that supposed to cinch the deal…Continue Reading…
This article mentions how local ranchers and conservationists are up in arms about the proposed toxic waste dump that would sit right next to Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. But no quotes from archaeologists, which I found odd. Yet the “Outhouse Recycling Facility,” as the 474-acre waste pits are being termed, would be a…Continue Reading…
I’ve been chewing over this column by Nicholas Kristof since yesterday. Of course, he’s not the first to observe the central paradox of our revolutionary new medium: it gives us infinitely more and varied perspectives, yet it also abets increasingly polarized debate. Kristof, in ruing the latter, gets the big picture right. But in making…Continue Reading…
That’s the title of this astonishing story in the current issue of Science News. Antiquities trafficking is the bane of archaeology, yet it appears that archaeologists in the Middle East and elsewhere are playing an unwitting role when they employ local laborers for excavations. (The first generation of southwestern archaeologists learned this lesson the hard…Continue Reading…
As I outlined here, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is grappling with global warming in a big way. Additionally, federal biologists from Florida to Arizona are currently at work on new long-range plans that factor in the unpredictable effects of climate change on vulnerable species. It’s a complicated task, fraught with many uncertainties….Continue Reading…
While public debate in the U.S. swirls over the best and quickest course of action to reduce carbon emissions, another debate on global warming is quietly unfolding in anonymous government offices across the country: how to manage wildlife and ecosystems that are certain to be greatly impacted by the forces of climate change already underway….Continue Reading…
You may not know this but between now and doomsday, there’s still a lot of choices to be made related to climate change. (I’ll get to a few of them in a minute.) That’s because all the news and blog chatter in recent months has focused on how we all of a sudden found ourselves…Continue Reading…
Which crisis is more urgent: the collapsing world economy, the accelerating buildup of greenhouse gases, the growing instability of Pakistan’s governing coalition, the 29,000 children under five years old that die everyday from causes related to poverty, or the the tottering newspaper industry? Really depends where you sit, doesn’t it?